At the Varnish, a speakeasy-style downtown bar that is now the city’s shrine to the art of the cocktail, the who’s who of the L.A. mixology scene are arriving. Tucked into the back of Cole’s, it’s a fine gathering place for an event with the Sporting Life, a skull-and-bones guild of our most celebrated bartenders. Steven Olson is pacing out front, doing last-minute fact-checking on the history of the margarita. His colleague David Wondrich is taking the full brunt of Olson’s frayed nerves. “Some of the most important bartenders in the country are in there,” says Olson. “I need to make sure this story has been confirmed.”

As the room fills, a near fistfight erupts in the corner—about ice. Yes, frozen water. The two bartenders defend their positions like fam­ily honor. Ice is that big of a deal. In fact, it might—save only for temperature—be the single most overlooked factor affecting mainstream cocktails. As bartender Eric Alpe­rin asserts, “Ice is the bartender’s flame, and it’s often the most disregarded ingredient.”

Olson begins his presentation and goes on to debunk an old myth: The margarita was not invented in an Acapulco bar in 1948; it is actually a descendent of the Brandy Daisy, which dates back to the late 19th century. A gasp issues from the crowd—these people are serious cocktail nerds.

“Half of the country’s top 10 bartenders today are in L.A.,” Olson says. But as recently as six years ago, the state of cocktails in Los Angeles was at a low point. In spite of the city’s illustrious lineage, only a handful of places remained where one could get a proper drink. Gone were the days of Billy Wilkerson and his speakeasy-inspired nightclub crusade that included classic haunts like Ciro’s and Trocadero.

Enter the visionaries. In 2004, it seemed like a crazy idea to make a pilgrimage from, say, the Westside to downtown for one of Cedd Moses’ first properties, the Golden Gopher. Moses was an early pioneer and cannot be given enough props in terms of his vital role in reshaping downtown and preserving our cocktail legacy.

Today, the rate at which significant cocktail bars are opening and world-class bartenders are emerging makes Los Angeles the most exciting scene in the United States.

The proof, however, as is said, is in the pudding—or in this case, the libation. Our informal tasting panel sipped its way across town to seek out noteworthy and unique drinks that not only taste remarkable but represent a creative leap in construction. The research, we assure you, was strictly academic…

Rivera’s Cox is modest and kindly, but his cocktails at this downtown spot are fierce—starting with the Barbacoa—a blend of Herra­dura Silver tequila, lime juice, red jalapeños and red bell peppers, chipotle puree, house-made ginger syrup and agave nectar, garnished with beef jerky. (Note: Barbacoa refers to meats wrapped in maguey leaves and cooked in earthen holes.) It’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted and breaks myriad rules in its ascent to brilliance. The nose erupts immediately into perplexity, pushing all the boundaries of what we know about taste—sweet, salty, sour, bitter and, yes, the fifth element: umami.

The Donají is Cox’s ode to the storied Zapotec princess, featuring Del Maguey San Luis del Rio mezcal, citrus juice and agave nectar, colorfully accented with fresh pomegranates, an organic lemon leaf and chapulin salt—the latter two garnered from unnamed local sources. This is perhaps the purest aromatic expression of mezcal that a cocktail has ever known. The palate is impeccably balanced, with an intense depth of flavor, refreshing finish and lingering clean redolence in which the sweet citrus marries with the herbaceous characteristics of the distillate.

Blood Sugar Sex Magic is a delectable potion of Michter’s Single Barrel US1 straight rye whiskey, agave nectar, chili pepper, lemon slices and basil. The ingredients are muddled and shaken, then served over ice. While the base spirit is decidedly non-Latin, the explosive, spicy flavors make for yet another beautiful cocktail pairing.

THE KING OF BAHIA; Vincenzo Marianella, Copa d’Oro

Selecting a single cocktail from Marianella—who, when he joined Providence in 2005, became il Padrino (the godfather) of L.A.’s cocktail renaissance—is challenging, particularly since his most compelling drinks are often invented on the spot. Among his jewels, however, is an appropriately named concoction that evokes the sensual essence of Brazil. The King of Bahia features disparate ingredients—Brazilian Sagatiba cachaça, St- Germain elderflower liqueur, passion fruit, lemon juice, jalapeño and simple syrup—that collide exquisitely with bossa nova–like poise. The immensely complex flavors are gloriously confusing to the palate, revealing layers of sophistication—running the spectrum from luscious nectar to intense heat—that are only trumped by sheer, unanticipated balance. Sultry and sumptuous.

A former semi-pro basketball player from Italy, Marianella is modest, claiming that since the age of 19 he has “stolen” techniques from bartenders from Sydney to New York to London, where he met his most significant mentor, Salvatore Calabrese. “But it takes two to tango. A passionate bartender can only do so much,” he says, referring to Moses, whom he bluntly calls a genius. Currently, Marianella is his own master at Copa d’Oro in Santa Monica, which he was tapped to join by Jonathan Chu at the beginning of 2009. The Westside oasis derives inspiration from the Santa Monica farmers’ market, allowing patrons to create cocktails from a select menu of spirits, herbs, fruits and vegetables—yielding exquisite libations.

THE ARSENAL Zahra Bates, Providence

This master takes her craft up a notch with the Arsenal—a fruit-driven classically inspired cocktail that is seamlessly balanced in its sweetness. Bulleit bourbon, agave nectar, Angostura bitters and muddled olallieberries and passion-fruit puree add up to an unrivaled complexity and purity. “I suppose the Arsenal is a true reflection of my style of mixing,” Bates says. “I love to make the spirit I am working with shine—in this case, bourbon, drawing out the citrus and dark fruit notes, yet not forgetting its beautiful smoky qualities.” Her respect for the base spirit and its modifiers is evident; this has to be one of the best cocktails in the country.

When Bates—now mixing it up at Hollywood’s Providence, after working six years in London at the Sanderson Hotel, as well as at Hollywood’s legendary Bar Marmont—shakes a cocktail, she has to use her entire body, starting at the knees, because, as she kids, “I’m so small I need all the help I can get.” If you catch her on a slow night or early in a shift, you might be lucky enough to pull a few stories out of her—and she definitely has her share.

THE NETTLE; Daniel Nelson, Doheny

Deep in Nelson’s repertoire are cocktails containing ingredients that even seasoned barmen use sparingly—raw ginger, myriad liqueurs and absinthe, to name a few. He has an instinctive understanding of base spirits, their congeners and modifying agents, and he marries them effortlessly. Among his most popular are the Square Cup, the Ginger Marga­rita, the Walnut Manhattan and his infamous Blue Blazer.

The Nettle, however, is a singular mixture that might just flaunt the best use of absinthe in any libation. It blends fresh-squeezed blood-orange juice, honey syrup and absinthe—all shaken with ice and poured into a flute, then topped with champagne. It is immediately bright and refreshing while rich and darkly complex. To take the first sip is to embark on a journey that inevitably meanders into shady districts, consequential of the magnificent Le Tourment Vert absinthe, reconciling in the brightness of Perrier-Jouët Brut Champagne.

Nelson entered the collective L.A. consciousness most prominently at Providence. These days, he’s both reviving centuries-old cocktails and blazing trails with new inventions at the Doheny, a private downtown club owned by Cedd Moses and Mark Verge.

THE BROWN DERBY; Marcos Tello, The Edison and The Varnish

Few bartenders are more scholarly about cocktail history than Tello. He regales his patrons with stories of George Washington’s punch parties, culminating in a version of the Whiskey Rebellion you never read about in school. Tello’s Brown Derby—which originated at the Vendome, the first in a string of clubs opened by Billy Wilkerson—is about as easy as it gets in terms of ingredients: bourbon, grapefruit and honey. But his result is greater than the sum of its parts. By the third sip, complexity blooms, and the ingredients blend flawlessly.

Tello is the quintessential organizer—timeless and zealous in his campaign for reform—and he is beloved. He serves as president of the Southern Chapter of the United States Bartenders’ Guild (USBG), and he founded the Sporting Life, the society of L.A.’s benevolent cocktail illuminati.

THE SPICED MULE; Damian Windsor, The Roger Room

Among his peers, Australian native Damian Windsor is consistently mentioned as one of the best barmen in L.A. A favorite cocktail of his is the Spiced Mule, inspired by a trip to the Curio Parlor cocktail club in Paris and conjuring images of tall ships and late-19th-century seaports. “Rum was the first currency of Australia, and the only people eating limes back then were sailors,” he says. Everything is complementary and contradictory at the same time—naughty and pure. Fresh liquefied ginger is beautifully tempered by lime and a spice-infused simple syrup of nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon, paving a landing strip for the beautifully balanced Sailor Jerry spiced rum. The palate is intensely sweet, explosively spicy and entirely mysterious, yielding complex flavors, borrowing from the best of Indochina along the colonial spice route.

Windsor has a cult-like following that tracks his every move: from Table 8 to Copa d’Oro to Seven Grand. He currently holds forth at the Roger Room, which opened its unmarked doors on La Cienega earlier this summer.

SOUTH OF THE BORDER SAZERAC; Jason Bran, The Roger Room

Born out of a dinner in which he matched eight courses of food with original cocktails is Bran’s South of the Border Sazerac. The original Sazerac, one of the oldest known cocktails—and a New Orleans native like Bran—calls for rye whiskey, Peychaud’s bitters (and only Peychaud’s), a sugar cube, a splash of absinthe and a lemon for garnish. Bran loves the drink because “after all these years, it is true to the spirit—you can taste the whiskey. The bitters and absinthe are secondary.” In his version, he substitutes rye with Don Julio añejo tequila, the sugar cube with agave nectar, the Peychaud’s with Fee Brothers grapefruit bitters and Regans’ orange bitters. The tequila and bitters—unlikely bedfellows—interweave a structure in which the absinthe dances whimsically, lending an intricate harmony. This is innovative drinksmithing—breaking ground while maintaining a reverence for classics.

Bran trained in Seattle as both barman and circus performer. While under the tutelage of famed Seattle barman Murray Stenson of the Zig Zag Café, he studied with the Teatro ZinZanni troupe. His circus background coupled with an interest in writing led him to L.A., where he has made a significant name for himself as an assertive barman.

REMEMBER THE MAINE; Eric Alperin, The Varnish

Commemorating the attack on the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898 and the subsequent call to arms that led to the Spanish-American War, Eric Alperin’s version of Remember the Maine is exceptional. The recipe includes Old Overholt rye—for its nutty profile and backbone—Dolin Rouge Vermouth de Chambéry, Cherry Heering, a spray of Pernod absinthe and a slightly wet Luxardo Marasche cherry. The rye is first and foremost, giving way to a battle between Cherry’s sweet spice and absinthe’s herbaceous muse. The overwhelmingly complex palate is at once sweet, sour and bitter, revealing layers of rich, deep flavor that persist indefinitely.

Alperin’s pedigree is unparalleled. After tenures in New York—Lupa (Mario Batali, Joe Bastian­ich) and the Milk & Honey/Little Branch family (Sasha Petraske)—he was brought here to open Osteria Mozza, then moved downtown to the Doheny and now the Varnish. For him, cocktails are personal: “Man, I relate drinks to moments and experiences—that first sip after a tough job or that glass of something after a good romp in the bedroom.”

THE FASHIONISTA, David Kupchinsky, Comme Ça

This creation might just be Kupchinsky’s signature cocktail. The Fashionista calls for Martin Miller’s Westbourne Strength gin (a good start), Peychaud’s bitters, a pinch of tarragon, Luxardo Marasche cherries and Banyuls vinegar. It’s a unique example of a culinary cocktail that stays within the realm of traditional libations. The very floral nature of the gin begins a delectable dance that is enhanced by the tarragon, taking twists into the sweetness of cherry and the sharpness of bitters. In between, there is something quite remarkable—a concoction of toasted juniper, white pepper and coriander seeds marinated in Banyuls vinegar that lends a delightful convolution. Think herbaceous, floral, spicy and rich.

At West Hollywood’s Comme Ça, Kupchinsky is unassuming and enchantingly disconnected from the scene. He seems to channel spirits in his cocktail making and relies on his intuition more than trends. He offers a decidedly refreshing twist on the sidecar—his lemon-verbena version calls for Kelt Cognac, Cointreau, honey, lemon and lemon verbena, topped with Regans’ orange bitters. Highly recommended.

OLD-FASHIONED; John Coltharp, Seven Grand

Seven Grand

With a complete redefinition of the venerable old-fashioned that poses impeccable balance and thorough longevity, Coltharp creates his most formidable drink. The nose is complex in its purity, offering balmy lemon skin, jasmine and orange blossoms, with oscillating waves of sweet and bitter. To quote the drinksmith: “A well-made old-fashioned is the bedrock of cocktails. A bartender who doesn’t take care in building one is someone I’m buying a beer and a shot from. They’ve been made for over 200 years. Let’s give a nod to those that poured before us, and make them right.” His incarnation consists of Sazerac six-year rye whiskey—as he calls it, “Baby Saz”—a white sugar cube, Angostura bitters, soda water and lemon and orange peels. But it’s not the ingredients that make it—rather, it’s the hand of the craftsman.

Coltharp trained under Australia’s Sammy Ross—of Milk & Honey/Little Branch fame—at Comme Ça and Sona, making him an indirect descendant of New York legend Sasha Petraske. This experience, no doubt, prepared him for his true love—whiskey—and an invitation to join Cedd Moses’ Seven Grand downtown, the first serious property built for and around spirits.

PISCO SOUR; Lucas Paya, The Bazaar

PAYA, The Bazaar

Barcelona native Paya’s pièce de résistance has to be his Pisco Sour, served in a cocktail glass with Pisco 100, lemon and lime juices, simple syrup, fresh egg whites and Angostura bitters. Never has a better balance been achieved with Pisco—one that puts the earthy distillate front and center, revealing its funky, herbaceous belly while drawing upon egg whites to lend body and citrus to elevate its intrinsic flavors. It is ridiculously decadent, refreshing and simply elegant.

At Bar Centro at the Bazaar in Beverly Hills’ SLS Hotel, where Paya serves as beverage director, his libation arsenal is extensive: He has enabled Angelenos to have a reason to drink Sangria again—here made with Parés Baltà cava (a type of sparkling wine), lime rounds, raspberry, verbena, gin, Cognac, Cointreau, simple syrup, orange skin and grapes. His version of the dirty martini, with Ketel One and Noilly Prat topped with an “olive brine air”—the unexpected contrast of salty foam chased by the essence of pure distillate—is brilliant. His dramatic Liquid Nitrogen Caipirinha is cachaça, sugar and lime, topped with edible petals and lime zest, all nitro-whisked until it can be eaten with a spoon.

FRESCURA, Pablo Moix, Hotel Maya

A Queens native of Colombian and Venezuelan origins, Moix takes great pleasure in educating people about cocktails, and he can make one hell of a drink, which he’s currently doing at Long Beach’s Hotel Maya. His original Frescura combines Cazadores Reposado tequila, Del Maguey Chichicapa mezcal, orange and lemon juices, chamomile simple syrup and ginger, topped with ginger ale. The intrinsic flavors of the agave-based spirits, found in dank earthiness, elegant smoke and chlorophyll, are accentuated by the citrus and elevated further by the ginger-chamomile components and candied aromas. The crushed ice provides for temperature control and perpetuates the playfully unassuming nature of the cocktail. About halfway through the drink, you believe you’re drinking liquid magic.

Through preeminent roving beverage consultant Ryan Magarian, whose clients include the Huntley Hotel, Consilient Restaurant Group, the Viceroy Hotel in Miami and the Sofitel hotels, Moix learned cocktail history, recipe execution and management skills. Recently, he accepted a position with Bacardi as portfolio mixologist, enabling him to work with New World agave and cane-based spirits and continue to collaborate both with friends across the country and imbibers—connoisseurs and novices alike.

You find yourself tearing down a seemingly endless dirt road in Ron Cooper’s Jeep—a rooster tail of dust marking a path as your body jolts in the backseat. The radio signal renders faint traces of a Mexican narco-ballad on the blown-out speakers, punc­tuating his diatribes on purity.

At this point, you’re living out a scene from Apocalypse Now. Then the stark landscape pulls you back: a labyrinth of trails among steep mountains adorned in a sea of maguey plants—the raw material behind mezcal, one of the most complex and misunderstood distillates on Earth. Your destination is a Zapotec village nestled along the Rio Hormiga Colorada, 8,000 feet up in the Oaxacan Sierra, where village elder and master mezcal distiller Paciano Cruz Nolasco awaits.

Hunched over the wheel is Cooper, the architect of mezcal’s resurrection, who has single-handedly revitalized the misunderstood Mexican spirit. His eyes gauge your awareness in the rearview mirror, and with a 500-foot drop a hair to your right, you realize you’re in the hands of a crusader and that his sense of danger is different from yours. They might someday write corridos about Cooper, chronicling his odyssey battling corrupt government regulators, multinational thugs and cutthroat rivals. But mostly they would speak of his drive.

Long before his tangles with mezcal, Cooper was looking for trouble. In his hometown of Ojai, he was surrounded by the likes of Jiddu Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley and Alan Watts. That was before the demons were born, those that would forge his reputation as a “radical” at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, which he attended from 1963 to ’65, before leaving for “political reasons.” Lifelong collaborations were shaped there—Ken Price, Larry Bell, Terry Allen and Ed Ruscha among them. When pressed about his premature departure, he will only say, “I didn’t like the direction the school was heading.” Integrity is everything to Cooper.

His journey from artist to mezcal producer started with a single question on a summer night in 1970: “Do you think the Pan-American Highway really exists?” It was at Riko Mizuno’s gallery on La Cienega, after a group-show opening that included Cooper. Hopped up on Herradura and hubris, he—along with buddies Jim Ganzer and Robbie Dick—hastily piled surfboards atop a VW van and headed south. Four months later, they hit Panama. En route, the fabled highway led them to the village that Cooper and his company, Del Maguey Mezcal, now call home: Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca.

For Cooper, formative thoughts of Del Maguey began in 1990, and he started following rumors down dirt roads. But it was his art that inadvertently began his fascination with the spirit. Among his works—which have been featured at the Whitney, Guggenheim, LACMA and in a recent show curated by Dennis Hopper at Taos’ Harwood Museum—was the production of a sculptural limited-edition of 50 hand-blown blue glass bottles bearing the Aztec god of intoxication, Ometotchtli, meant to be filled with mezcal, the likes of which few foreigners had tasted.

When his zeal led him to try to cross the border with a five-gallon jug of sacred wedding mezcal—gifted by Zapotec farmers after an eight-day celebration—the Texas border patrol forced him to dump his beloved distillate. He obliged but says, “I decided right then and there I would go into the liquor business. Mezcal like this didn’t exist in the U.S.—nothing even close.”

Mezcal, one of Mexico’s national treasures and the mother of tequila, had long been forsaken for its corrupted daughter. Any time an agave-based distillate is made, it is called mezcal; thus, all tequilas qualify. Tequila is a region, like Champagne or Cognac. It was once called vino de mezcal de la region de Tequila. The clichéd notion of gusanos (worms) has no place in a serious conversation about mezcal. Since the 1950s, the entire category of mezcal had been hijacked by Mexico City marketers, who used lurid gimmicks to sell inferior spirits. The only notion of it in the United States was through false, adulterated products.

Of late, there has been an explosion of mezcal in the press—whispered about as the next spirits category. After years of the overmarketed artifice of big brands, the artisan cocktail movement raised the bar for quality along with its demand for authenticity. The purity of true mezcal took the industry by storm—its distinctive earthiness, herbaceous undertones and elegant smoky qualities taste unlike any other spirit. Bar chefs the world over are enthralled by it, and the reverberations have made their way down to the back roads of Oaxaca, where factories are sprouting up like golf courses in a desert.

Cooper is the least likely person to call this a sudden trans­formation, as he conceived of the metamorphosis more than two decades ago. Del Maguey calls its incarnation “single-village” mezcal. In essence, his methodology gives palenqueros (mezcal producers) the freedom to produce their libation using methods the indigenous people of Oaxaca have been employing for more than four centuries.

While mezcal is made in other parts of Mexico, Oaxaca has historically produced the most sought after renditions. The result is a distinct character and purity from village to village. The Zapotec people are up against multinational might and multimillion-dollar facilities—like those found in the state of Jalisco, where tequila is made—complete with laboratories and plush tasting rooms, and with minimal resources, they still produce a better product.

Unlike the nearest competition, these unblended spirits are made by family producers in remote villages with varying microclimates. Like their ancestors, they still make offerings to deities, in exchange for permission and blessings, before harvest­ing for the revered spirit, which they regard as a spiritual entity.

While Del Maguey distillates have always been organic, they are also approved by OCIA, making them one of the first mezcals in the world with organic certification. There are just two ingredients: water and piñas—aka the heart of the maguey—which are roasted over hot stones, covered with earth and eventually mashed in either horse-drawn stone mills or by men with mallets, depending on the village.

After completely natural fermentation in wooden vats, the liquid is distilled in wood-fired clay or copper stills, true to its 16th-century roots and, as Cooper says, “leaving room for the will of God and maguey in the bottle.”

Steven Olson, renowned wine and spirits expert, has exalted the virtues of Cooper’s Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal for more than a decade, calling it “the most complex, versatile and rarefied distillate on earth.” Internationally celebrated gastronomic innovator José Andrés—of the Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills—says Cooper’s creation is “the best thing a man can put in his mouth.” They share an affinity for his Pechuga mezcal, from the village of Santa Catarina Minas—among the most scarce and coveted bottling on earth. But for Cooper, it’s really about his passion for preserving a culture.

Cooper was green and organic long before such concepts were popularized. Del Maguey pays fair-trade premiums over and above local industry standards and encourages educational programs to achieve sustainable production. Among the locals who are directly impacted by the efforts of Del Maguey are 150 women from two villages who weave traditional palm-fiber bottle covers, a family of ceramicists who make the company’s signature sipping cups and employees of the bottling facility. Each bottle’s top is hand-dipped in organic beeswax recycled from the local church’s offering candles, bringing yet another spiritual layer to the process.

Del Maguey has worked to expand the consciousness surrounding the native cultures of Oaxaca and mezcal as a spirits category. Cooper has taken ambassador palenqueros to the United States to be celebrated as true artisans, and hundreds have in turn visited the palenques of Del Maguey. It has become a right of passage among international libation cognoscenti. And it is within this group that Cooper has found a sense of community and vitality he hasn’t experienced since the art scene of L.A. and New York in the 1960s.

“But they better enjoy that sense of communality now,” Cooper cautions, “because the zeitgeist won’t last long with commercialism chipping away at its soul.” And while he has benefited from the artisan cocktail movement and a demand for higher quality spirits, in the absence of this culinary craze, he’d still be living in a Zapotec village among these people.

The sacred nature of Del Maguey is a natural outgrowth of Cooper’s unbending ethos and residual principles from the hippie era. “When it was just me, Pancho and the Indians, we were living in paradise, surrounded by the most gracious, beautiful people on earth,” he says nostalgically. Pancho Martinez, the oldest of four brothers, who has been Cooper’s right hand for nearly two decades, is a master Zapotec weaver and the stubborn keeper of customs for his bloodline.

Things changed, seemingly for the better, in February 2005, with the coming of NOM (Norma Oficial Mexicana) federal production regulations—think FDA for spirits—which Cooper welcomed in his quest to eliminate adulterated mezcal from the marketplace. However, with the Mexican government’s push for purity came a thirst for increased tax revenues. “You can’t have a verifier looking over your shoulder all the time when you’re making art or mezcal—it spoils the heavenly transcendence you feel when you’re right on,” Cooper says.

As Hopper, his friend for more than four decades, explains, “Ron’s art was always forward thinking. He created work using minimal materials before others even thought about doing it.” The same sentiment could obviously be applied to Cooper’s focus on mezcal—in terms of both vision and materials.

Does Cooper still find time for artwork? To those who would unwittingly pose the question, he might just look at you—fire in his eyes—and say, “What the f–k do you think this is, man?”

Article originally featured in LA Times Magazine, November 2009
by Wyatt Peabody / photographs by Lloyd Ziff / produced by Jennifer Stockley